Yes, it's a sad day, and I'm gonna quit scrolling. First, I read of Earl Wilson's death, then Laura Ingraham's breast cancer. Now this... Oh, man...
Mark Scott was a lot of fun to listen to. I followed his career in the earlier WXYZ/WXYT days, before he left for Washington, and welcomed his return.
Then WXYT abandoned the talk format after so long, and he did the internet broadcast. He resurfaced on WXDX 1310 with a 2-hour show in the afternoon in 2004, and repeatedly became enraged with the horrible engineering on that station -- minutes of dead air, promos coming on at the wrong time, etc. He didn't suffer incompetence well...
He liked to antagonize his employers, frequently taking his contract disputes to the airwaves. The last time I heard his show on WXDX, he was upset for some reason and called someone in the studio a "dickhead." My impression was that he thought the mic wasn't live, but it was. He was gone the next day, but I'm not going so far as to say that this is what caused it. I really don't know. He was also very politically at-odds with network owner and drivetime, mostly-liberal talking head, Dave Scott.
And, please -- let's spell David Newman's name correctly, out of respect for the most eloquent extemporaneous speaker I have ever heard.
We miss you David, especially on April 1st and at "banished words" time....
Remember the famous GovernmentAid April Fools Spoof?
He had a beurocrat on who claimed that government workers were poorly paid and that there was going to be a LiveAid type benefit concert to give money to the poor government workers. I was running around the shop I was working at then in a lather. Callers were just trashing this guy. No one got it until about one minute before the end of the show when David and his buddy fessed up. Radio at its absolute finest. This was on the same level as War of the Worlds.
David Newmans Memorial Day History Quiz was also can't miss radio.